Paul Davies: new comments on Information and life (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, March 19, 2020, 11:42 (1711 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] the discussion concerns your attempt to make information use information (though for some reason you have denied this). We had operational information using passive information, and now you lump them together as “biological information”! ID-ers use the complexity of biological processes as proof of a designer. The passive information is used by intelligence (you say automatic through instructions, Shapiro says autonomous through cellular intelligence), and nobody knows the source of the intelligence that uses the information, but it might be God. (dhw’s bold) Why must we have information that uses information and now we have information as proof of a designer?(David’s bold)

DAVID: The entry from the 'skeptic of Darwin' shows his thoughts about information.

He does not even mention it!

DAVID: ID folks believe there is more than one type of information in the cell and it empowers the cell to take form and also function automatically . Its existence requires a mind as the source. I'm surprised at your final bolded statement by me. That has been the point all along. The source of the information must be mental. Remember? Chance or design is all there is to choose between.

You resolutely avoid the subject of my complaint, which is not the argument for design but the confusing use of the term “information”. You denied that you had information using information, but you had “operational” and “instructional” information using “passive” information, and now you have “biological” information as proof of God’s existence. I don’t know why you think this clarifies your arguments. Please reread my own bold above. Why on earth do you have to call intelligence “operational information”? Why on earth do you have call the complexities of design “biological information”? Of course it’s the “in” word, and it causes such absurd headings as “Information as the source of life”. Remember that one?